Red-figure kylix

Kylix was a vessel made of clay or metal. During the Classical period it was the standard vessel for drinking wine, and as such, it was closely associated with the symposium, a gathering of men of aristocratic origin, who drank, ate, discussed and enjoyed various kinds of entertainment. Kylikes were decorated both on the exterior and at the centre of the interior (“tondo”).

Frequently, the scenes painted on the “tondo” related to Dionysus (god of wine) and the symposium or had explicitly sexual content. That was meant to surprise the drinker who could only see the decoration after he had emptied the kylix. The Antiphon Painter was an Athenian red-figure vase-painter whose name is unknown. He was called the Antiphon Painter after a double “kalos” inscription on a dinos (vessel for mixing liquids) in Berlin. He is considered a pupil of Onesimos, and specialized in red-figure pottery.

He often collaborated with the potter Euphronios. Red figure technique of decorating clay objects according to which figures and decorative motifs after they are outlined, retain the red colour of the clay. The rest of the surface is covered with diluted clay which during its firing becomes black. The red-figure style was the main technique that Attic workshops employed for the decoration of the pots they produced from the end of the 6th c. until the end of the 4th c. BC.